By Pascal Oparada
In the wake of Facebook being in the eye of storm for aiding election peddlers and facing a backlash from unsers, Twitter has announced more changes to its rules to try to make it harder for people to use its platform to spread politically charged disinformation and thereby erode democratic processes.
In an update on its “elections integrity work” Monday, October 1, 2018, the company listed several new changes to the Twitter Rules which it said are intended to provide “clearer guidance” on behaviors it’s cracking down on.
So if Twitter is able to link an active disinformation campaign with spambots lurking in waiting to carry out the next operation it could successfully disrupt the long term planning of election fiddlers. Which would be great news.
There’s also more on this front: “We are expanding our enforcement approach to include accounts that deliberately mimic or are intended to replace accounts we have previously suspended for violating our rules,” Twitter also writes.
This additional element is also notable. It essentially means Twitter has given itself a policy allowing it to act against entire malicious ideologies — i.e. against groups of people trying to spread the same sort of disinformation, not just any a single identified bad actor connected to a number of accounts.
Another change being announced by Twitter now is a clampdown on the distribution of hacked materials via its platform.
Leaking hacked emails of political officials at key moments during an election cycle has been a key tactic for democracy fiddlers in recent years — such as the leak of emails sent by top officials in the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 US presidential election.
Or the last minute email leak in France during the presidential election last year.
Twitter notes that its rules already prohibit the distribution of hacked material which contains “private information or trade secrets, or could put people in harm’s way” — but says it’s now expanding “the criteria for when we will take action on accounts which claim responsibility for a hack, which includes threats and public incentives to hack specific people and accounts”.
So it seems, generally, to be broadening its policy to cover a wider support ecosystem around election hackers — or hacking more generally.
Twitter’s platform does frequently host hackers — who use anonymous Twitter accounts to crow about their hacks and/or direct attack threats at other users…
Presumably Twitter will be shutting that kind of hacker activity down in future.
Though it’s unclear what the new policy might mean for a hacktivist group like Anonymous (which is very active on Twitter).
Twitter’s new policy might also have repercussions for Wikileaks — which was directly involved in the spreading of the DNC leaked emails, for example, yet nonetheless has not previously been penalized by Twitter. (And thus remains on its platform so far.)
One also wonders how Twitter might respond to a future tweet from, say, US president Trump encouraging the hacking of a political opponent….
Safe to say, this policy could get pretty murky and tricky for Twitter.
“Commentary about a hack or hacked materials, such as news articles discussing a hack, are generally not considered a violation of this policy,” it also writes, giving itself a bit of wiggle room on how it will apply (or not apply) the policy.
Twitter also says it’s continuing to roll out new features to show more context around accounts — giving the example of the launch of election labels earlier this year, as a beta for candidates in the 2018 U.S. midterm elections. Though it’s clearly got lots of work to do on that front — given all the other elections continuously taking place in the rest of the world.
With an eye on the security of the US midterms as a first focus, Twitter says it will send election candidates a message prompt to ensure they have two-factor authentication enabled on their account to boost security.
“We are offering electoral institutions increased support via an elections-specific support portal, which is designed to ensure we receive and review critical feedback about emerging issues as quickly as possible. We will continue to expand this program ahead of the elections and will provide information about the feedback we receive in the near future,” it adds, again showing that its initial candidate support efforts are US-focused.
On the civic engagement front, Twitter says it is also actively encouraging US-based users to vote and to register to vote, as well as aiming to increase access to relevant voter registration info.
“As part of our civic engagement efforts, we are building conversation around the hashtag #BeAVoter with a custom emoji, sending U.S.-based users a prompt in their home timeline with information on how to register to vote, and drawing attention to these conversations and resources through the top US trend,” it writes. “This trend is being promoted by @TwitterGov, which will create even more access to voter registration information, including election reminders and an absentee ballot FAQ.”
It is not yet known if the new rules announced by Twitter applies to people outside of the United States as it is election season in a number of African countries like Nigeria.
If the new rules extends to Nigeria, it would curb the explosion of fake and hacked materials on its platform in the country.
